HMS Beangle

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it. We spent the lead up to the Winter Solstice re-watching the Harry Potter series, like we do every year, like we did every year when Ian lived at home, and like the three of us did separately after he moved away. I still enjoy the movies and the books. I know there’s controversy. I know there are opinions. For us, we’re not taking any sides; it’s fun and tradition and we bought them all ages ago.

We’ve also been re-watching our annual lineup of unrelated Christmas movies. Last night was Elf. Christmas Day is reserved for A Christmas Story, we’ll watch that tonight. “Wow, that’s great!” One thing I’ve longed for today is a bar of Banket, that quintessentially West Michigan Dutch dessert of sugar-infused almond paste covered by several overlapping layers of flaky, butter-loaded pastry shaped into a long tube. The ultimate Yule log, in my book.

Just to keep everyone up to date, we are still, yes still, at the same campground because one of the three parts needed to repair the truck’s alignment was delayed in shipping. It will hopefully be here on Monday. Then we could, and hopefully we will, be out of here by New Year’s Eve. Fingers crossed everyone. Fingers. Crossed.

On a delightful twist, the weather yesterday turned perfect. Blue skies with just a touch of clouds, warm breezes, and sitting right at 75º Fahrenheit. It’s the same today and looks like tomorrow will be too. As such, and since everything is closed for the holiday anyways, we’re enjoying some camp chair time in the sun. We’re reading, relaxing, and now and then watching the locals cruise the campground in their golf carts. Apparently this the local excitement (and clearly everyone knows the gate code). We picked up a couple of steaks for our fancy holiday dinner. They’re marinading as I type this.

Two weekends back when the overnight temps drop to 20º, we headed to Athens, GA for two nights to check out the University of Georgia campus and see the musical home of a few of our favorite alternative bands from our own Uni days. The B-52’s (previous post) were one band, but the big draw for me was knowing that R.E.M. started in the town as well. (Eventually I will learn to play the mandolin part of Losing My Religion, but it’s going to take a while.) Classes weren’t in session the weekend we were there, so all the students were gone and a few things were closed, but we also enjoyed the chance to roam around without dodging a pile of exam stressed co-eds. We always got a seat at what is now our restaurant there too, The Globe. Great food, interesting drinks, and pleasant staff.

If you ever go, “Give them my name at the door, and they will attend to you.” If you get the reference, we’re probably friends.

One of the first things we saw on campus was this great ‘pointer tree’. Do you see how two branches were trained at a very early stage into right angles? We learned from a very helpful docent at The Cherokee Museum of South Carolina that the Cherokee used to do this as a way-finding measure. Trails would have pointer trees to help them find their way through the forests on important routes. Now that we know to look for them, we see them more often than we would have expected to. The fact that this pointer tree stands there, in the main square of the oldest state-chartered land-grant school in the nation (1785), is a good reminder of a good many things.

City Hall in Athens is a classically pretty building. I especially like the patina of the dome’s copper roof.

A fun fact about this double barreled cannon is that it’s the only one known to still be in existence. It was a prototype designed to shoot two cannonballs connected, by a chain, into a regiment of oncoming soldiers, “to mow them down like a scythe through wheat.” That did not happen. Unable to find a way to light both charges simultaneously, its only contribution to the Civil War was to become an addition in the Nope Files and a quick lesson in how wildly cannonballs can fly. As safe as loosing two cats tied together at the tail into a wading pool full of toddlers.

Athens has a few interesting art-related bits around town. I especially liked the mosaic light pole foundations I saw near the music hall of fame sidewalk inserts, along the music venue corridor. There must be over two dozen places to listen to live music, right near campus alone. No wonder it’s a kind of musician incubator.

A lot of the town has the mid- to late-1800s brick and stone architecture that we’ve been seeing. I liked this one because it immediately brought to mind Morton’s Salt. I don’t know why that made me smile, but it did, so here you go. When it rains, it pours.

We found the Old Jail, of course, when we walked to tour a local mansion, only to find that the mansion was closed and we needed to make a reservation to tour it in the off-season. Oh well, live and learn. We didn’t have time to do that, so we just roamed around and looked at a few more historic buildings.

Dear parents of U of G students, this is the school-provided home for the University’s president. Remember that the next time you wonder how tuition has gotten so high? Also, I clearly miscalculated when choosing careers. That upper porch? Those verandas? I can almost taste the sweet tea and hot, buttered biscuits. Summer heat would have no power against that architecture.

I’m a sucker for an old cemetery, and this is the oldest one in Athens, but it was closed. Locked behind a chained gate. Alas.

Following are a few of the U of G buildings on the square. Pretty, pretty, pretty.

It’s a very pretty campus, and I can only imagine how good it must SMELL when the blooms are in full swing and the weather starts to get sultry. There are so many flowering trees and bushes and what seems like acres and acres of flower beds.

OK, now back to R.E.M. The back of the Murmurs LP cover shows a partial bridge, long dilapidated, and hence forth referred to as the Murmurs bridge. It’s since been reconnected (see below) to the opposite side of the creek as part of the multi-use Firefly Trail. Eventually, the trail will be thirty-some odd miles long. On our way to see it, being the fans that we are, I noticed that we were passing Weaver D’s restaurant where the owner reportedly has always responded, “Automatic,” to people when they place their orders. That little quirk became the reason for the band’s Automatic for the People LP title. I think it’s fair to say that R.E.M.’s affection for Athens, Georgia ran deep.

On our way out of town, we stopped by the Botanical Gardens of Georgia, south of Athens, since the weather was growing warmer and we always enjoy a trip through a botanical garden, even when the plants are slumbering.

The conservatory was decorated for the holidays and the Garden itself was full of whimsy. A good trip, all around.

As we sat enjoying the sunshine today, we noticed how point specific wind can be. Fifty yards across the inlet from us, a tree’s dead leaves were rattling away in the wind while the tree right next to us, in a similar state of dead leaf coverage was barely moving. We tend to think of wind as a single thing, a kind of giant box fan that blows across everything and everywhere at the same time, but being outside a lot has made us much more aware of the nuances of nature.